Leadership

Why I started Valorem

I have spent years on both sides of the table — advising high-growth companies as an EY partner, then running Accounting at a high-growth tech company. The pattern was consistent. Companies at this stage get offered one of two things: a large-firm engagement priced and paced based on hours, or software that doesn't quite achieve your objectives.

I knew there had to be a better way, and that is why Valorem exists. We combine experienced talent who have actually sat in the seat, powered by AI, to deliver value-based outcomes for our clients. We just want to solve your pain points and be truly aligned on our collective goals, which is why we don't have sales or utilization targets.

In practice that means process optimization, managed services, AI training and enablement, audit and transaction assistance, and fractional finance leadership. See what we do →

Leadership journey

My time at EY gave me the foundation — leadership, client service, and strategic advisory — focused on dynamic, high-growth companies where I could be a trusted advisor rather than a vendor.

I made the deliberate decision to leave the Partnership to become an operator. Sitting inside a business — owning the close, the controls, the reporting, the team — reframed my entire approach. Advice lands differently once you have had to live with the consequences of it.

I have a continuous improvement mindset and I enjoy learning. I am an AI power user of the frontier models, and I have invested hundreds of hours in learning how best to deploy them within finance and accounting — not the marketing, the actual capability. That work shapes how I think about what great should look like across technology, process and people.

Why we have no sales or utilization targets

Professional services firms tend to run on two numbers: how much you sell, and how much of your week is billable. Both get presented as measures of performance. In practice they compete with the work.

A utilization target tells a professional to fill their hours. A sales target tells them to go find the next engagement before the current one is finished. Neither asks whether the client actually got what they needed. Once those numbers exist, they quietly shape every judgment call — how long a problem gets looked at, whether an honest scope conversation happens, who gets staffed on what and why.

We do not have them. Nobody here carries a quota or a billable-hours goal. What matters is whether your finance and accounting function is in better shape than when we arrived. That is harder to put on a dashboard, but it is true client service.

Beyond work

Family comes first. More than fifteen years of marriage, two active kids, and a good deal of time with youth sports. I have coached a number of their teams, and I share their passion for martial arts and the lessons that come with it.

We travel as a family and enjoy immersing ourselves in new cultures. That same instinct, building relationships with purpose-driven people, carries into my work. I have been fortunate to serve on several not-for-profit boards supporting underserved communities, and we have fostered nearly a dozen animals along the way. It keeps things grounded.